back to indexBerean Community Church Sunday Service 6.25.2023
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"See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us 00:09:32.440 |
that we would be called children of God, and such we are." 00:09:40.440 |
let us reflect and rejoice in this great love 00:09:42.940 |
the Father has shown to us through His Son, Jesus. 00:10:07.940 |
♪ When your love reached out with sovereign hands ♪ 00:10:45.940 |
♪ We are pierced with Christ, bought by His blood ♪ 00:10:55.940 |
♪ Oh, how great the love that we've been shown ♪ 00:11:28.940 |
♪ We draw near and you're bound in confidence ♪ 00:12:06.940 |
♪ We are pierced with Christ, bought by His blood ♪ 00:12:16.940 |
♪ Oh, how great the love that we've been shown ♪ 00:12:43.940 |
♪ We are pierced with Christ, bought by His blood ♪ 00:12:54.940 |
♪ Oh, how great the love that we've been shown ♪ 00:13:30.940 |
If this is your first Sunday with us and you're visiting 00:13:34.940 |
and you wanna get to know more about our church, 00:13:38.940 |
that you can get information on how to plug in, 00:13:46.940 |
who can sit and ask you or answer questions for you. 00:14:02.940 |
So we're still working, we're working out the kinks, okay? 00:14:14.940 |
for people who are visiting and for young families, 00:14:24.940 |
If you guys are wanting to become members of the church, 00:14:38.940 |
And so that's a prerequisite for membership into the class. 00:14:42.940 |
If you have any questions, you can email Pastor Nate, 00:14:53.940 |
Speaking of the Korea team, they arrived there 00:15:09.940 |
but starting tomorrow, they have a very packed, 00:15:20.940 |
as the Christian population is rapidly declining. 00:15:27.940 |
Okay, so until then, please be fervent in your inner session. 00:15:37.940 |
so if you guys want to come and just kneel and pray, 00:15:58.940 |
Okay, if you want to sign up afterward, you can, 00:16:01.940 |
but we are running--we're running out of space and time, 00:16:10.940 |
and you want to be at the hotel that we're all at, okay? 00:16:15.940 |
our brother Brian Lee is going to come and share his testimony, 00:16:20.940 |
And if you have your offering--it's a physical one. 00:16:27.940 |
or--and even during the time of offering now, 00:16:37.940 |
and then we'll continue with our worship service. 00:16:53.940 |
that this worship service primarily is for you. 00:17:07.940 |
And we pray that from the beginning of the service 00:17:11.940 |
that you would lead it, that you would guide it, 00:17:16.940 |
and would we respond accordingly and appropriately. 00:17:23.940 |
but most importantly, we desire to offer you our hearts. 00:17:29.940 |
and would you receive the glory that you are due this morning? 00:18:24.940 |
And this next song is called "There is a Fountain," 00:18:36.940 |
But to the Christian, this is a precious truth 00:18:43.940 |
of our Savior's blood signifies the full pardon of our sin 00:18:47.940 |
and a restored relationship to our Heavenly Father. 00:20:21.940 |
Thy precious blood shall never lose its power. 00:29:45.940 |
I would like to first and foremost thank everyone who has helped and taught me to get me to where I am today. 00:29:53.940 |
And above all else, it was all thanks to God. 00:29:56.940 |
As I was growing up, I had a pretty privileged life. 00:30:00.940 |
I had two loving parents, amazing Korean food, and a roof over my head. 00:30:04.940 |
My struggle started when I first came to America at the age of nine. 00:30:09.940 |
I was often the target of bullying, so routinely I ate alone or hid in the bathroom. 00:30:14.940 |
I despised how pathetic I was and blamed it on my thick eyebrows or my shallow eczema. 00:30:21.940 |
Although I had my parents to turn to, my problems felt insignificant amongst their sea of difficulty and constant hard work. 00:30:30.940 |
I simply repressed it, and the longer I did, the more I truly felt alone. 00:30:36.940 |
I would spend countless nights contemplating whether dying would be less of a suffering. 00:30:41.940 |
In the midst of it all, something told me to hold on and place my faith in humanity. 00:30:47.940 |
All I wanted was to fit in, so I decided to pluck my eyebrows, sag my pants, sleep in class, 00:30:54.940 |
I stole, fought, and left my family as an afterthought. 00:30:59.940 |
With a reputation and friends came a gaping pit of insecurity, a need to please others, 00:31:04.940 |
and a belief that my value hinged on how others perceived me. 00:31:08.940 |
I kept cultivating a picture of myself on what I believed others would find appealing. 00:31:13.940 |
In retrospect, I realized that life without God is in vain, 00:31:17.940 |
and my self-righteousness kept me from seeing the sacrifices given to me. 00:31:22.940 |
Eventually, I landed on a group of friends who I would have taken a bullet for. 00:31:26.940 |
Ride or die, they were the only things that mattered to me, and of course, my new girlfriend. 00:31:31.940 |
However, our friendship of eight years fell apart. 00:31:35.940 |
It wasn't the first time I lost my friends, but it still hit me hard because they meant the world to me. 00:31:42.940 |
I felt betrayed and stopped seeing the point of trusting people or investing in the empty jar of people. 00:31:51.940 |
I started to push people away, and inevitably, my pride, anxiety, and gaping insecurities also resurfaced. 00:32:03.940 |
In my interaction with people, I frequently let my rage and feeling of disrespect get the better of me. 00:32:10.940 |
Drinking before bed was my muse to shut off my intrusive thoughts, and worst one yet, I struck my middle sister. 00:32:31.940 |
I called her a monster, made excuses for why she deserved it, 00:32:55.940 |
but no amount of good could clean my ass. I was a monster. 00:33:01.940 |
To fill the void in my heart, I tried to work on self-improvement in my career, money, and brokenness within my family. 00:33:10.940 |
However, no matter what I tried, I was never able to make up for my emptiness. 00:33:16.940 |
When I first came to Berrien, my goal at the time was to make connections and learn about good morals. 00:33:22.940 |
As I continued to attend the sermons and talk to individuals, my curiosity grew about what the truth had deepened. 00:33:38.940 |
I knew firsthand, truth is not of this world. There was endless greed in each individual and priority of self-preservation. 00:33:45.940 |
We trust ourselves to make the right decisions in this world. If humans were perfect, as society claims, then no problem. 00:33:52.940 |
I should be able to trust any decision I make, as the results should be perfect. 00:33:56.940 |
But I am an imperfect being who yearns for perfect outcomes, and that is why I ended up empty. 00:34:01.940 |
That our soul is not of this world, and I had desires for justice, equality, peace, and love in a barren place. 00:34:08.940 |
I was sick of waiting for my next fix of dopamine, and I yearned for the real truth. 00:34:14.940 |
Pascal's wager was enough for me to believe in God that religion was relatively easy to pick. 00:34:24.940 |
The one religion that stood above the rest, and that we were saved, Christianity. 00:34:30.940 |
That we are not saved through works, but through Jesus Christ. It says so in Ephesians 2, verse 8. 00:34:36.940 |
There's no one way, there's no way one can put enough good works in this world to counteract evil. 00:34:44.940 |
I knew that in my head, but my soul did not believe. 00:34:49.940 |
Through my hypocrisy, I tried to put in the work to be a Christian, to have equalities and love without Jesus Christ. 00:34:55.940 |
No matter what I did, it wasn't enough. I only realized I was at the edge of a cliff when I spoke with Pastor Mark. 00:35:02.940 |
Although God was urging me to jump and put my trust in Him, I felt undeserving and was doubting His authority. 00:35:08.940 |
I told God, "My sins are too heavy, and let me do some work until I'm qualified enough." 00:35:15.940 |
I was then told by Pastor Mark that our sins are too heavy to be worked off, and I have to ask to be saved. 00:35:22.940 |
So we began praying. God unveiled to me that pride was a source of my independence and my reluctance to ask for help. 00:35:29.940 |
He revealed to me how much He loved me, and He would truth me over and over, 00:35:34.940 |
that He is God, and that I did not become something I'm not just to be loved. 00:35:39.940 |
To bring my broken pieces as they are, that night as I broke down and felt the warmth of God, 00:35:46.940 |
God's love and forgiveness wash over me, I realized that it really was that easy. 00:35:51.940 |
Romans 8, chapter 8, verse 31 to 32, helped me understand the extent of His love. 00:35:59.940 |
"What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 00:36:04.940 |
He who did not spare His own love, but delivered Him over for us all, 00:36:09.940 |
how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? 00:36:14.940 |
Although sanctification is a process, I was set free of my shackles of anxiety, 00:36:20.940 |
sorrow, and the fear of death. I have now joy I cannot contain, 00:36:25.940 |
but I had to question whether I was really believing this, 00:36:29.940 |
because I found a place where I felt like I belonged, and had volleyball. 00:36:34.940 |
I can confidently say that I would still believe, even if I didn't have all those things." 00:36:52.940 |
Brian, do you understand that when you go into the water, 00:37:10.940 |
you're uniting with Christ in His death, and as you come out, you're uniting with Him in His resurrection? 00:37:15.940 |
As you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. 00:37:41.940 |
I actually was probably one of the first people to meet Brian at the church, 00:37:48.940 |
It really is an encouragement just to see the many people that have prayed for him, 00:37:53.940 |
that have loved on him, and it is a joy just to be able to baptize him this morning. 00:37:58.940 |
If you guys have your Bibles with you, please turn to 1 Peter chapter 2, 00:38:05.940 |
and I'm going to be reading for you verses 1 through 3. 00:38:14.940 |
It reads, "Therefore, putting aside all malice, and all deceit, and hypocrisy, and envy, and all slander, 00:38:25.940 |
like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the Word, 00:38:30.940 |
so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation. 00:38:33.940 |
If you have tasted the kindness of the Lord." 00:38:40.940 |
Father, we are gathered here to hear your truth, 00:38:46.940 |
and I pray, Father, that you would feed your sheep, 00:38:58.940 |
and cause us to leave here as people who respond appropriately to the proclamation of your truth, 00:39:06.940 |
and help us, Lord God, really to respond with much affection toward the cross of Christ, 00:39:14.940 |
and that in turn, it would lead us to just love our people. 00:39:19.940 |
And so we thank you for just your provision of this time, 00:39:23.940 |
and we pray for your protection over the pulpit, 00:39:26.940 |
help our minds and our hearts to be both awake and alert and so soft. 00:39:34.940 |
We thank you, God, for giving us this morning, 00:39:37.940 |
and we pray for just your help to listen well. 00:39:43.940 |
So as most of you know, I have a twin son and daughter, 00:39:47.940 |
and shortly after we found out that we were having a boy and a girl, 00:39:53.940 |
I started praying very specifically for each of the two of them. 00:39:58.940 |
And we named our daughter Keres, which in Greek means gift. 00:40:05.940 |
I prayed daily that my daughter would grow up to become a woman with both great zeal for the Lord, 00:40:12.940 |
and specifically a heart of compassion for the poor and for the lost. 00:40:18.940 |
And I prayed that she would become a champion for the orphans and the widows, 00:40:24.940 |
I mean, I was working for Compassion International. 00:40:26.940 |
I didn't think I would be coming back, but that was my longings for my unborn daughter. 00:40:32.940 |
And we named our son Matthias, and in Acts 1:26, 00:40:37.940 |
it's written that Matthias was the one who replaced Judas Iscariot 00:40:45.940 |
And we don't know much else about Matthias outside of that fact that he was an apostle. 00:40:51.940 |
And for some reason, that obscurity really appealed to me greatly. 00:40:56.940 |
And no doubt, Apostle Matthias did his part in the building up of the kingdom of God. 00:41:00.940 |
No doubt, Apostle Matthias bore great spiritual fruit. 00:41:05.940 |
And like Matthias of the Scriptures, I prayed from before our Matty was born 00:41:09.940 |
that he would become a faithful man of God who loves the Lord, who loves the Word, 00:41:14.940 |
and who faithfully helps to build the church of Jesus Christ, even if no one knows about it, 00:41:23.940 |
And this is how I prayed for them from the time they were in the womb. 00:41:27.940 |
And the twins were born just slightly premature, and so they spent a week in the incubator. 00:41:33.940 |
And that week was such a special and memorable time for me personally. 00:41:37.940 |
I spent hours in the NICU every day, and I took turns with each of them, 00:41:41.940 |
just placing him or her on my chest, and just spending an hour, like, snuggling and kissing 00:41:50.940 |
And the prayers that I had prayed for them while they were in the womb, 00:41:53.940 |
I prayed again while they were against my chest. 00:41:57.940 |
And over the years, we've since developed, like, a bedtime ritual with the kids 00:42:05.940 |
And the contents of my prayer to this day have not changed much. 00:42:10.940 |
And in preparing for this sermon, it kind of dawned on me that my prayers, 00:42:16.940 |
both for Maddie and Karis, have always been future-focused, 00:42:21.940 |
that they would become mature, faithful, godly adults. 00:42:25.940 |
And that's the bar that I set for them in my heart. 00:42:31.940 |
And I pray these things with expectation and with all my heart as their father every night. 00:42:38.940 |
And my job as their father did not end there at the hospital at their birth 00:42:43.940 |
or when we got their birth certificates to say that they're formally, 00:42:47.940 |
in the eyes of the state, that they're our children. 00:42:53.940 |
And, Lord willing, my role as their father will continue as I shepherd and guide them into adulthood. 00:43:06.940 |
I don't ever pray for or hope that my children remain children. 00:43:15.940 |
Now, like, for sure, I've said, "Oh, I wish they could stay this way forever," 00:43:27.940 |
And you may have said it too if you're a parent, 00:43:30.940 |
but you would be alarmed if your child stopped growing. 00:43:34.940 |
You would be concerned if they stopped maturing. 00:43:38.940 |
If at 20 they still acted like they were 5, you would be grieved. 00:43:49.940 |
And similarly, children of God are not to remain spiritually childish forever. 00:43:58.940 |
And in our passage today, the Apostle Peter writes that Christians are supposed to grow. 00:44:20.940 |
And as the Spirit of God himself prays for his children with groans which words cannot express, 00:44:29.940 |
the spiritual growth of every Christian is expected and inevitable. 00:44:53.940 |
In Hebrews 6, verse 1, the author of Hebrews similarly exhorts us saying, 00:45:02.940 |
And we're to be fed, to be trained, and then we are to be pressed toward growth. 00:45:23.940 |
The spiritually dead cannot spiritually grow, 00:45:27.940 |
but the spiritually living cannot but grow into the likeness of their spiritual father. 00:45:35.940 |
So we who have the Spirit of God, who have had our hearts of stone replaced with hearts of flesh, 00:45:51.940 |
You're either dead or you're alive and growing. 00:45:56.940 |
You cannot be alive in Christ and not grow into his likeness. 00:46:08.940 |
and though there are specific situations and specific circumstances 00:46:16.940 |
the bulk of his letter is actually very future-focused. 00:46:21.940 |
The first chapter of 1 Peter begins with the descriptions of the Christian's future, 00:46:26.940 |
the Christian's bar, the father's expectations, 00:46:30.940 |
and what the fullness of maturity for the Christian looks like. 00:46:33.940 |
So we've studied this last year, so in some ways this is review, 00:46:38.940 |
but chapter 1 is about what the Christian is supposed to become, 00:46:45.940 |
The Christian becomes more and more of these things as he is sanctified. 00:46:51.940 |
So the first one, he grows in obedience to Jesus Christ. 00:46:59.940 |
He lives a life full of praise and glory and honor to Christ, 00:47:03.940 |
and he'll continue to do so until Christ returns. 00:47:10.940 |
There's a theological word for this. It's called sanctification. 00:47:14.940 |
So the Christian continues to grow in holiness, 00:47:17.940 |
and as he walks with the Lord, he grows and develops a greater hunger 00:47:23.940 |
and appetite for the eternal word of God, and all of that is in chapter 1. 00:47:28.940 |
And that's what the spiritual DNA of every Christian looks like. 00:47:38.940 |
and I said the first three verses of chapter 2 for us in the beginning. 00:47:41.940 |
And 1 Peter 2 begins with the word "therefore," 00:47:45.940 |
and most every "therefore" that we find in the Scriptures is important. 00:47:50.940 |
And whenever we come across a "therefore," you have to ask the question, 00:48:00.940 |
Usually a "therefore" connects what has just been said with an expected application. 00:48:06.940 |
It connects what has just been said with an appropriate response. 00:48:13.940 |
So in chapter 1, since the Christian is an heir to a future and eternal hope 00:48:18.940 |
which is imperishable, unfading, and undefiled, 00:48:21.940 |
he is "therefore," in chapter 2, to conduct himself in the following way in the present. 00:48:27.940 |
And I want to read the first three verses again for you. 00:48:30.940 |
"Therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit, and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, 00:48:37.940 |
like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, 00:48:41.940 |
so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, 00:48:44.940 |
if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord." 00:48:47.940 |
So in these three verses, in this passage, there is a condition. 00:48:53.940 |
And in this passage, you will also find that there is one single command, 00:49:00.940 |
And also in these three verses, there is only one attending participle 00:49:04.940 |
that describes how the Christian is supposed to obey this command. 00:49:08.940 |
And so I'm going to lay out the outline of this passage for you up front. 00:49:15.940 |
And the logical flow of thought in this passage, it's in the reverse order to what is written. 00:49:21.940 |
So we're going to be looking at this passage back to front. 00:49:25.940 |
The text makes better sense in our minds if you go from back to front. 00:49:29.940 |
So first, we're going to be looking at the condition, the "if" clause. 00:49:35.940 |
Then we're going to look at the single command, "epipateo," 00:49:39.940 |
which means to long for or to hunger, to crave the word of God. 00:49:46.940 |
So there's that condition and there's a command. 00:49:49.940 |
And at the end, we're going to look at the things that curb the Christian's appetite for the word of God, 00:50:01.940 |
The condition, verse 3, the command in verse 2, 00:50:04.940 |
and at the end, the appetite curbs that need to be put aside in verse 1. 00:50:10.940 |
So the condition, I'm going to start with verse 3. 00:50:13.940 |
It reads, "If you have tasted the kindness of the Lord." 00:50:18.940 |
Now, once you've got your physical Bibles open, 00:50:20.940 |
some of you may notice that the font is different for verse 3. 00:50:25.940 |
So if you have a physical Bible, a newer translation, 00:50:29.940 |
a differing font in a New Testament passage usually denotes a quoting of the Septuagint, 00:50:34.940 |
which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament. 00:50:37.940 |
And this, verse 3, is a direct reference to the Greek translation of Psalm 34.8. 00:50:46.940 |
"If you will taste and see that the Lord is good, how blessed is the man who takes refuge in him." 00:50:53.940 |
In Psalm 34, it seems pretty important to the theology of Apostle Peter, 00:51:00.940 |
because he quotes it here in chapter 2, and then he quotes it again in chapter 3. 00:51:09.940 |
and it describes a man who has been delivered or rescued by Yahweh God. 00:51:16.940 |
Psalm 34 describes a man who is completely helpless. 00:51:25.940 |
He is a man who cries out to Yahweh, his only hope. 00:51:31.940 |
And this man, God answers, and He saves him from all his troubles, 00:51:38.940 |
And this helpless man in Psalm 34 is then given the title "righteous." 00:51:45.940 |
And he is called righteous on three different occasions. 00:52:01.940 |
In his utter helplessness, he takes refuge in Yahweh. 00:52:09.940 |
And having been rescued and changed, he exalts and praises Yahweh. 00:52:14.940 |
He has tasted and he has seen the kindness and goodness of the Lord, 00:52:21.940 |
And the righteousness of the Psalm 34 man is not earned by religious effort. 00:52:30.940 |
It's a reward for his faith, not for his deeds. 00:52:45.940 |
And remember in our first Peter text today, I said that there is a condition, 00:52:49.940 |
and it reads, "If you have tasted the kindness of the Lord." 00:52:55.940 |
So how do we know if a person has tasted the kindness of the Lord? 00:53:02.940 |
The Bible teaches us that the primary evidence of having experienced the kindness of God is this. 00:53:16.940 |
"Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, 00:53:21.940 |
not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?" 00:53:33.940 |
It is a walking in the newness of life and in its power. 00:53:36.940 |
It's a turning away from sin and a cleaving to the Lordship of Christ. 00:53:43.940 |
2 Corinthians 7, 10 tells us that repentance leads to salvation. 00:53:49.940 |
If you've never repented, you've never been saved. 00:53:54.940 |
No matter what experience you might have had, 00:53:57.940 |
no matter how many years you've been to church, 00:54:00.940 |
if you've never repented, you've never been saved. 00:54:03.940 |
It is impossible for a person who has tasted the kindness of God to live in unrepentance. 00:54:12.940 |
It is impossible for a person who has tasted the kindness of God to live in unrepentance. 00:54:24.940 |
The Old Testament prophets all preached repentance. 00:54:28.940 |
John the Baptist, the first New Testament prophet, he preached repentance. 00:54:33.940 |
Jesus Christ himself, he preached repentance. 00:54:37.940 |
At Pentecost, the Apostle Peter, in his very first sermon recorded ever, he preached repentance. 00:54:44.940 |
The Apostle Paul's entire ministry to the Gentiles could be summed up as a ministry of calling people to repentance. 00:54:53.940 |
Paul, in detailing his ministry, in describing it, he describes it like this before King Agrippa in Acts 26, verse 20. 00:55:03.940 |
"But I kept declaring both to those of Damascus first and also at Jerusalem and then throughout all the region of Judea, 00:55:11.940 |
and even to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, 00:55:22.940 |
So repentance in the Scriptures is always measurable. 00:55:31.940 |
And you cannot have truly experienced the kindness of the Lord and live in unrepentance. 00:55:41.940 |
The non-Christian, when confronted with his sin, justifies and excuses his sin. 00:55:50.940 |
Blame shifts and then vilifies other people and says things like, "Who are you to judge me?" 00:56:01.940 |
The non-Christian is hostile toward the call to repentance. 00:56:06.940 |
The Christian, on the other hand, when confronted with his sins, sooner than later, the Christian always repents. 00:56:16.940 |
So the primary evidence of having tasted the kindness of the Lord, it's a life of genuine repentance. 00:56:25.940 |
So the command in 1 Peter 2, verse 2, it's written to those who have indeed tasted the kindness of the Lord. 00:56:39.940 |
So, if you've tasted the kindness of the Lord, the command applies to you. 00:56:46.940 |
So, to the Christian, the Apostle Peter writes in verse 2, 00:56:53.940 |
"Like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the Word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, 00:57:01.940 |
if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord." 00:57:05.940 |
So here in verse 2, we find the only imperative, the only command in this entire passage. 00:57:10.940 |
Some scholars actually say that this is the central command of the whole book. 00:57:21.940 |
"If you have tasted the kindness of the Lord, long for His Word." 00:57:33.940 |
It's like an intense, insatiable desire, an obsession, or a passion. 00:57:40.940 |
It actually has been used in Greek to talk about a newly wedded husband's longing for his wife. 00:57:48.940 |
It's used to describe the longings for a deceased loved one that you might have. 00:57:56.940 |
You're grieving, and you're obsessed with just sadness because you're longing for the deceased loved one. 00:58:05.940 |
It's also used in Greek literature to describe a parent who has lost his child, or a child that's gone wayward. 00:58:16.940 |
Someone who is longing in this way has a one-track mind. 00:58:28.940 |
Here in chapter 2, verse 2, it is used to describe a baby's single-minded focus, his obsession, his hunger for milk. 00:58:39.940 |
"If you have tasted the kindness of the Lord, if you've been made righteous, if you have had your heart of stone removed and been given a heart of flesh, 00:58:48.940 |
long for the word in the same way a newborn baby longs for milk." 00:58:58.940 |
A Christian must long and will long to be fed by the pure spiritual milk of the Word. 00:59:07.940 |
More specifically, in the context of our passage, "You are what you crave." 00:59:12.940 |
A baby bird will long for a bug, or perhaps even a worm. 00:59:24.940 |
A baby fish--you might learn something new this morning, I googled this yesterday--a baby fish will long for microorganisms called infusoria. 00:59:42.940 |
Caterpillars, they're passionate about leaves. 00:59:46.940 |
We have at our house a theologically very rich book called "The Hungry Caterpillar." 00:59:52.940 |
If you have time, check it out. Theologically rich. 00:59:56.940 |
Baby snakes will long for insects, small amphibians, and even rodents. 01:00:04.940 |
A baby snake is hardwired to go after a rodent, even right after it's hatched. 01:00:10.940 |
A baby human will long for and scream his head off until he gets his milk. 01:00:30.940 |
It's not like a "Oh, I want some milk." It's not like that. It's like "Ahhhh!" 01:00:37.940 |
It's hangry for milk. That's how he's been designed. 01:00:49.940 |
Or will be satisfied with a rodent, even if you puree it. 01:01:22.940 |
It's in the spiritual DNA of every Christian to long for the pure milk of the Word. 01:01:29.940 |
Being born again, you've been hardwired to long for it. 01:01:36.940 |
A child of God who has tasted the kindness of the Lord will not be satisfied only with community, 01:01:46.940 |
comfort, success, strong morals, a sense of purpose, good praise music, 01:01:53.940 |
encouraging words of affirmation from people who boost self-esteem, belonging. 01:02:00.940 |
All of those things are good things, even though I make faces. They're all okay. 01:02:05.940 |
But a child of God will not be fed on those things. 01:02:15.940 |
A child of God can only be satisfied with and will long to feed off of Christ and His Word. 01:02:23.940 |
For a person to call himself a Christian and have no hunger or longing for the pure milk of the Word 01:02:30.940 |
is holding on to a theological impossibility. 01:02:42.940 |
This kind of faith is not anywhere in the Scriptures. 01:02:47.940 |
That's actually not even faith. That's superstition. 01:02:57.940 |
So that kind of a person who's at church, who serves, but has no craving for the Word of God 01:03:10.940 |
The non-Christian cannot handle the pure milk of the Word. 01:03:16.940 |
The non-Christian will be repulsed by the pure milk of the Word. 01:03:22.940 |
It will actually disgust and offend him. He will spit it out. 01:03:27.940 |
If you quote the Word of God to a Christian, even if it's painful, they'll be like, 01:03:32.940 |
"You know what? You're right. Amen. I just don't like how you said it." 01:03:36.940 |
But a Christian, or non-Christian, you quote him the Word of God, they'll be like, 01:03:41.940 |
"Don't quote the Bible at me. Don't judge me. Who are you?" 01:03:45.940 |
That's the non-Christian response when the Word of God is confronting the person's sins. 01:03:53.940 |
The genuine Christian will always reflect, "Is that me? Is this God's voice?" 01:04:01.940 |
Some of you guys have recently done little experiments and have hatched chickens and duck eggs at home. 01:04:07.940 |
It's all over Instagram. You know who you are. 01:04:11.940 |
I'm absolutely certain you didn't give those chicks or the ducklings little shots of milk. 01:04:19.940 |
You'd be a fool if you did that. That's a waste of milk. 01:04:24.940 |
As a baby bird and a baby human long for and are satisfied with different foods, 01:04:29.940 |
the cravings and the longings of a non-Christian differ greatly from those of a Christian. Amen? 01:04:39.940 |
Now, for the great many of you here today, you know you are at a Bible church. 01:04:44.940 |
And you know that the church holds the Word of God in high regard here. 01:04:52.940 |
So you might just be nodding along and saying, "Amen," almost instinctively. 01:04:55.940 |
"Amen? Amen." Right? You did that because I said to. Right? That's what happens. 01:05:01.940 |
You may think you agree with everything that I've just said about a Christian's appetite for the Word, 01:05:07.940 |
but I want to briefly caution you by pointing you to a couple sobering examples 01:05:13.940 |
of what could be mistaken for the longing of the Word of God. 01:05:18.940 |
Being intrigued and fascinated and entertained by good preaching is not necessarily a longing for the Word. 01:05:27.940 |
You can enjoy good preaching and still have zero longing for the Word. 01:05:34.940 |
I'll give you an example. There's a guy named Herod in the Scriptures. 01:05:41.940 |
"For Herod was afraid of John, knowing that John was a righteous and holy man. 01:05:52.940 |
And when John preached, when Herod heard him, he was very perplexed. 01:06:04.940 |
When John the Baptist told Herod to repent, he was so intrigued, but he put John in prison. 01:06:11.940 |
Herod later put John the Baptist, his favorite preacher, to death. 01:06:19.940 |
Enjoying and being moved occasionally by Bible teaching is not the same thing as longing for the Word. 01:06:32.940 |
But remember, worldly sorrow still brings forth death. 01:06:39.940 |
An eagerness to learn lots of things about the Bible may not necessarily be a longing for the Word. 01:06:47.940 |
You can be puffed up with a lot of knowledge and still remain unchanged by it. 01:06:52.940 |
You can enjoy the process of inductive Bible study, be intrigued with the process of just learning through the pages of the Scriptures, 01:07:04.940 |
You can search the Scriptures and land on correct doctrine and still have zero relationship with Jesus Christ. 01:07:12.940 |
Knowledge of the Word and acknowledgement of doctrinal truth, sometimes they masquerade as a longing for the Word. 01:07:22.940 |
The Pharisees and the demons are two groups that serve as examples of this, and I want to show it to you. 01:07:28.940 |
John 5, verse 39 to 40, you search the Scriptures because you think that in those Scriptures you have eternal life. 01:07:36.940 |
It is these that testify about me, and you are unwilling to come to me so that you may have life. 01:07:44.940 |
James 2, verse 19, this is written to a bunch of monotheists. 01:07:55.940 |
Oh, and they shudder. They know better than you. 01:07:59.940 |
So what is a longing for the pure milk of the Word? 01:08:06.940 |
It's going to be provided for you on the note, so you don't need to try to scramble to write everything down. 01:08:13.940 |
But someone who longs for the Word of God looks like this. 01:08:17.940 |
First, those who are his children desire his voice. 01:08:25.940 |
And that desire produces faith in his children, Romans 10, 17. 01:08:31.940 |
These children then believe eagerly and are zealous to put the Word into practice and to obey, John 14, 15. 01:08:51.940 |
And then the Word of God continues to abide in those who are his children, John 15, 7. 01:08:56.940 |
And then the Spirit guides the Word onto the heart of a believer, and he guides them into all truth, John 16, 13. 01:09:05.940 |
And then the Word of God sanctifies the children, so there is like a marked, visible, tangible evidence of holiness, John 17, 17. 01:09:14.940 |
And these children persevere through all kinds of rocks or thorns or sunlight, and they bear fruit, 30, 60, 100 fold, Mark 4. 01:09:26.940 |
And then these children no longer satisfied just with milk. 01:09:31.940 |
They start craving meat, solid food, Hebrews 5, 14. 01:09:37.940 |
And that implanted Word produces Christ-like love in these children, 1 Corinthians 13. 01:09:47.940 |
If you are knowledgeable about the Scriptures but you have no compassion for people, I don't think that's a longing for the Word. 01:09:55.940 |
True biblical literacy, a greater longing for the pure milk of the Word, always results in humility, terror, holiness, and great love. 01:10:08.940 |
True biblical feeding and literacy always produces in a person humility, terror, holiness, and love. 01:10:21.940 |
There is a zeal to know God and not just to know a lot about Him. 01:10:26.940 |
So over time, the spiritual baby grows to look more and more like his spiritual daddy. 01:10:34.940 |
If with the passage of time, you don't resemble God, the explanation is not complicated at all. 01:10:45.940 |
If you've been a Christian 20, 30 years and you are no more like the person of Jesus Christ than when you made that altar call profession, 01:11:01.940 |
And you are devoid of the Spirit no matter what your subjective experiences might tell you. 01:11:12.940 |
So are you longing for the pure milk of the Word? 01:11:22.940 |
So how does the Christian long for the Word as a newborn baby longs for milk? 01:11:33.940 |
And the commands in the Scripture are meant to be obeyed. 01:11:37.940 |
And the tricky thing about this command, "long," is not a command that we can just obey on cue. 01:11:50.940 |
So if I were to command you, "Thus saith the Lord, uninstall Netflix from your phone," you can apply. 01:12:01.940 |
If I were to say, "Hey, next time you exit the MacArthur exit off of the 55 and there's a homeless person there asking for money, give him $5." 01:12:13.940 |
Those are very specific commands and they're pretty clear. 01:12:16.940 |
And then it would be more of an issue of whether or not you want to obey, but those are easy to apply. 01:12:22.940 |
But if I were to tell you right here, "Be thirsty." 01:12:29.940 |
Or if my wife were sitting right there and I said, "Hey, babe, miss me." 01:12:43.940 |
If you were to take a cup of water, I would say, "Be thirsty." 01:12:47.940 |
And you took a cup of water and drank. You didn't obey that command. 01:12:50.940 |
You just tried to figure out an application just to appease your guilty conscience and get me off your back. 01:13:01.940 |
What I find fascinating with this command, "Too long," is that this is one of the few imperatives in the scriptures that are almost obeyed passively. 01:13:18.940 |
This is a command that can be actively shrugged off or disobeyed. 01:13:24.940 |
But this obedience to this command actually will come naturally. 01:13:36.940 |
Basically, that's what's being commanded here. 01:13:40.940 |
It will come naturally, but it's not something that I can necessarily immediately obey on cue. 01:13:48.940 |
But I can obstruct and I can disobey by obstruction. 01:13:54.940 |
My spiritual hunger, my appetite for God's word can be curbed. 01:14:00.940 |
So in order to be appropriately hungry, my appetite must be saved. 01:14:08.940 |
That's why I tell my kids at 3 o'clock when they ask for Pringles, I said, "No. Save your stomach." 01:14:15.940 |
I'm kind of weak-sauce, so they'll get the Pringles. 01:14:18.940 |
And then my wife complains, "How come you guys aren't eating all your food?" 01:14:27.940 |
In order to be appropriately hungry, my appetite needs to be saved. 01:14:32.940 |
And we see the Apostle Peter instructing the Christians of Asia Minor to put off, lay aside, or abstain from the things that curb spiritual appetites. 01:14:43.940 |
So the Apostle Peter in verse 1, he starts out with a mini list of things that believers must put off, put aside, or abstain from. 01:14:55.940 |
"Therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, like newborn babies, 01:15:03.940 |
long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, 01:15:09.940 |
if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord." 01:15:14.940 |
If you were to assess the things that rob your spiritual appetite of its hunger and its zest, what are those things? 01:15:24.940 |
What are the things that obstruct your longing for the word of God? 01:15:38.940 |
When I think of the things that curb my spiritual appetite, things that kill my hunger for the word of God, 01:15:44.940 |
these are not the things that are on my list. 01:15:51.940 |
Are they on your list of things that curb your appetite for the word of God? 01:15:56.940 |
Here in Orange County, when we think of stuff that takes away our hunger for God, 01:16:01.940 |
aren't they things more related to like entertainment, lust-related struggles, materialism, rat race, right? 01:16:10.940 |
Where would malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, slander rank on your list of curbs? 01:16:20.940 |
Entertainment, lust, ambition, materialism, for sure. 01:16:24.940 |
They obstruct an individual's longing for the word of God, and they ruin individuals. 01:16:30.940 |
But in this list that Peter provides, malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, slander, 01:16:43.940 |
Peter exhorts us to be like newborn babies, plural. 01:16:47.940 |
The command "too long" is written in the second person, plural. 01:16:51.940 |
It is not written for individuals, but for the entire church body. 01:16:55.940 |
In fact, every "you" in this entire section is all in the plural. 01:17:04.940 |
And put aside this stuff that curb your desires. 01:17:09.940 |
The list of things that Peter mentions can destroy an entire community's longing for the word of God. 01:17:15.940 |
The sins listed here tear through and ruin churches. 01:17:20.940 |
And Satan's favorite and most effective strategy has always been--he's not that creative, he's just efficient-- 01:17:28.940 |
Malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, slander, they divide and ruin relationships and churches. 01:17:38.940 |
And these are the things that our collective body here at the church need to glean from this passage. 01:17:47.940 |
These are the things that we need to be mindful of. 01:17:50.940 |
Because this is not about you, it's about all of us. 01:17:56.940 |
For some context, we're going to need to understand what these churches of age and minor were encountering. 01:18:01.940 |
In this period of time, the Christians, they were known as followers of the way. 01:18:05.940 |
They were very misunderstood, they were persecuted, and often viewed as troublemakers. 01:18:10.940 |
And I want to just point you to some passages, Acts 19.9. 01:18:14.940 |
"But when some were becoming hardened and disobedient, speaking evil of the way before the people, 01:18:19.940 |
he withdrew from them and took away the disciples, reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus." 01:18:25.940 |
"About that time there occurred no small disturbance concerning the way." 01:18:30.940 |
Acts 22.4, Paul describing his former way of life in Judaism. 01:18:34.940 |
"I persecuted this way to the death, binding and putting both men and women into prisons." 01:18:40.940 |
So there was confusion as to what the followers of the way really believed. 01:18:52.940 |
You were denied access and entrance into the church if you were not born again, if you were not baptized. 01:18:59.940 |
So people on the outside looking in had some misconceptions of the followers of the way. 01:19:08.940 |
And in their cultic meetings, they engaged in homosexual practices because they do Philadelphia too? 01:19:17.940 |
Some people thought the Christians in their gatherings practiced cannibalism because they ate their leader's flesh. 01:19:40.940 |
Some viewed Christians as primitive and backwards. 01:19:43.940 |
Some entire economies, like that's written in the first Thessalonians, in Macedonia, were ruined because all Christians were boycotting all idols. 01:19:56.940 |
Christians were very easy scapegoats for society's woes. 01:20:03.940 |
So when they were captured and arrested and their leaders were thrown to lions for sport and hoisted onto stakes to light the streets of Rome, 01:20:12.940 |
panic and confusion and fear struck a lot of congregations. 01:20:19.940 |
But for some reason, nonetheless, by the power of God and the grace of God, 01:20:26.940 |
the Christian groups kept growing and multiplying and expanding so that the leaders were stretched. 01:20:37.940 |
That's why later in 1 Peter 5, he says to the shepherds, "Shepherd the flock of God, overseeing it not out of compulsion but willingly, with eagerness." 01:20:54.940 |
So imagine being part of a community that's always being slandered, being mistreated, heavily persecuted, and even executed as a group of people. 01:21:08.940 |
They did not always feel like a 1 Peter 2, 9-12, a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession. 01:21:25.940 |
Peter had to remind them of their identity, so I'm going to read the rest of this passage for you. 01:21:30.940 |
"So that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 01:21:37.940 |
Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God. 01:21:40.940 |
You had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. 01:21:43.940 |
Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts." 01:21:49.940 |
And he's not talking about entertainment and pornography. 01:21:59.940 |
"Abstain from these lusts which wage war against your soul, and keep your behavior among the Gentiles excellent, 01:22:08.940 |
so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds as they observe them, glorify God on the day of visitation. 01:22:19.940 |
When you are mistreated, ridiculed, beaten, and scorned, when we see our values maligned, let's say on social media, 01:22:32.940 |
It's an all-inclusive word meaning like a desire to harm or to exact retribution. 01:22:46.940 |
But Peter says that malice in this group can curb the group's longing for the pure milk of the Word. 01:23:01.940 |
There is a possible temptation to lie, to escape harm. 01:23:06.940 |
When there is animosity toward Christian groups, when there's animosity at the workplace or at schools, 01:23:13.940 |
there may be a temptation to just kind of tell half-truths, to wiggle away, to downplay, to deceive. 01:23:28.940 |
The church is supposed to be known to be a holy, living, members are supposed to be above reproach, full of love, no matter what the circumstance. 01:23:38.940 |
Members in the church of Christ are supposed to be free of hostility. 01:23:43.940 |
But in difficult situations, when you feel wrong, when you feel hurt, when you feel offended, what happens? 01:23:49.940 |
It's not always easy to practice what we preach. 01:23:53.940 |
Hypocrisy, too, curbs the longing for the pure milk of the Word. 01:24:00.940 |
But the envy that Peter is talking about is Christians envying how non-Christians have it so easy. 01:24:12.940 |
They can be materialistic. They can be worldly. 01:24:15.940 |
They don't have to take up their cross daily and to follow. 01:24:18.940 |
Man, in some ways, it would be nice not to be a Christian. 01:24:24.940 |
Galatians 6.12 talks about how people actually are trying to twist the Scripture so they won't be persecuted for the cross of Christ. 01:24:36.940 |
And there's a lot of that among some of you here in our church. 01:24:44.940 |
Crises, intense times can often divide a family or a group or an organization. 01:24:50.940 |
If things don't go your way, the first instinct is to blame the leadership. 01:24:55.940 |
And you slander the motivations of the leaders. 01:25:01.940 |
You're like, "Yeah, he's doing this. Oh, she's doing that." 01:25:06.940 |
And when we are disappointed or hurt by people or frustrated by one another, we badmouth and slander. 01:25:19.940 |
These five things obstruct a community's longing for and proper proclamation of the pure milk of the Word. 01:25:33.940 |
And the application for the whole of our church is to weed out these five things. 01:25:39.940 |
And when you weed out these five things, guess what happens to the Word of God? 01:25:43.940 |
There's an insatiable desire in all of its members. 01:25:51.940 |
So the primary exhortation that this passage leaves us with today is not that we all individually grow better to become like better Bereans. 01:25:58.940 |
That is, of course, implied, but that's not the passage. 01:26:10.940 |
And every member needs to individually long for the milk of the Word. 01:26:15.940 |
So if you're not doing well and you are a Christian, I'm going to come after you because you are important to this body. 01:26:23.940 |
Like if you guys are parents, which of your children can you most do away with? 01:26:34.940 |
I only have two, so it's easy, one or the other. 01:26:38.940 |
But which of you guys, if you have multiple kids, are willing to just let one go? 01:26:53.940 |
And I am my brother's keeper when it comes to trying to help you flee from malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander. 01:27:06.940 |
1 Peter 2, 1-3 is not a note to the individual believer. 01:27:13.940 |
And as a community, we do need to be diligent to obey. 01:27:24.940 |
I'm going to backtrack a little bit into 1 Peter 1, so that you can better see the context of the three verses we looked at this morning. 01:27:33.940 |
"Since you have, in obedience to the truth, purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart. 01:27:43.940 |
For you have been born again, not of seed, which is perishable, but imperishable, that is through the living and enduring word of God. 01:27:52.940 |
For all flesh is like grass, all its glory is like the flower of grass. 01:27:57.940 |
Grass withers, and the flower falls off, but the word of the Lord endures forever. 01:28:03.940 |
And this is the word which was preached to you. 01:28:06.940 |
Therefore, putting aside all malice, and all deceit, and hypocrisy, and envy, and all slander, like newborn babies, 01:28:14.940 |
long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may all grow in respect to salvation, 01:28:20.940 |
if indeed you all have tasted the kindness of the Lord." 01:28:26.940 |
Our second vision, and our four-fold vision, is to equip every saint with the inerrant word of God. 01:28:32.940 |
We cannot do that if our church is full of malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, slander. 01:28:44.940 |
So, in order for us to properly feed off the word, let's join together and get rid of those things. 01:29:00.940 |
Father, help us, especially those of us who are struggling, 01:29:06.940 |
especially with relationships, with fear, with insecurity, with doubt. 01:29:12.940 |
If we have tasted the kindness of the Lord, I pray that you would draw us near, 01:29:20.940 |
And I pray for the people in here that do not have a relationship with Christ, 01:29:25.940 |
even though they have a strong interest in Christianity, 01:29:29.940 |
I pray, Father God, that you would reveal yourself to him or to her, 01:29:35.940 |
and that you would shine brightly in that person's changed life. 01:29:40.940 |
Lord, we need your grace, especially as the church gets bigger. 01:29:45.940 |
People become more sinful as there are more sinners gathered. 01:29:52.940 |
So we pray for your help, so that nothing will mar the proclamation of your word in our lives and in this church. 01:30:01.940 |
To you be the glory. We pray all this in Jesus' name. 01:34:35.940 |
Lord, would you help us to long appropriately 01:34:45.940 |
and really to respond appropriately in worship, 01:34:56.940 |
so that this world would know that we indeed are your disciples 01:34:59.940 |
by how we love one another and how we live our lives, 01:35:08.940 |
that even the Gentiles and the nonbelievers would give you the glory. 01:35:13.940 |
And we pray, Father, that you would strengthen us, 01:35:15.940 |
equip us, empower us, and cause our fellowship 01:35:23.940 |
really to just please you and to exalt and magnify Christ. 01:35:32.940 |
and love of God the Father and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit 01:35:38.940 |
who has indeed tasted the kindness of the Lord,